Adventures in solder pottery

[Spksh]

Tinning 12 AWG wires with my dainty, precise, designed-for-SMD iron is an extreme sport. What's an unsupervised adult to do?

Who said dipping was only for cowboys?

Giving the tips the old snip snip shows complete penetration. This is tinning on easy mode.

Lessons:

• Only melt solid solder, not anything with a flux core.
• Use liquid flux on the wires, and really soak them. Wiping through a paste flux isn't enough.
• Hold in the solder pool and give it a long 10 count.
• Silicone is still the way to go, plastic just melts up the wire.

Next step is buying a real (well, the cheapest earthed knock-off I can find) solder pot so I'm not heating an entire hotplate every time.

 

[majin]

I've wanted to try this, it seem,s to bhe such a good way of tinning, my soldering is on a whole nother level, ( a very bad level) i can't imagine what messes i could make with a pot o solder lol, whered you get the pot from what is it?

 

[Spksh]

I've wanted to try this, it seem,s to bhe such a good way of tinning, my soldering is on a whole nother level, ( a very bad level) i can't imagine what messes i could make with a pot o solder lol, whered you get the pot from what is it?

The one in the photo is a "hand solder tinning pot" from AliExpress. I got it because it thought I'd fit my soldering iron.

I misread the sizes, so got the wrong one. Threw it on a hotplate to see if it would work, and it does, but holding a wire over that much heat isn't fun - wear gloves .

 

[OnwardGuinevere]

I like this idea!

 

[Spksh]

And here we go. 5x the price of the little brass pot, but actually earthed (I opened it to check) and feels way less dangerous than having a whole-ass hotplate on the bench near my hands. Little brass pot for scale.

Plenty of these floating around the various import sites.